Sunday, July 29, 2007

No new post this week. Too many other words I have to write. Have to give a presentation at work on Tuesday and still need to finish it up, as well as giving a speech for Toastmasters on Tuesday. Should be a great day ~arrrrgggggh~. Meggan and Sally both had vacations this past week, and both had their copies of the new Harry Potter books to take with them. Hope they both enjoyed their book and their respective trips.Kenny and I did head up to Canada Friday night for a quick get-away. We had a lot of fun, although they did make a lot of changes to the machines and the whole set-up is just not as nice as it used to be, back in the good ol' days when the pack of girls travelled together every other month. Those were some fun times!

Long gambling story short, I'm up about $150 and Kenny's shamefully slightly down. The shame comes into play because he WAS up $2,500 from a run like I have never seen on 3-card poker: back-to-back straight flushes and 3-of-a-kinds. The win got away from him this time and he wasn't able to hold onto it. He's still just down a little, but seriously, that's an awful lot of scratch to play back. He had fun, though. We leave for Atlantic City in a week & a half. I'm happy I have extra gambling money to take with me!

I finished my latest book, borrowed from Emily, She's Come Undone. Really good story, I had to stay up til 2 a.m. Thursday night and finish it. Too good to put down.

That's it from the peanut gallery. Maybe something exciting will come to me to write about later in the week. Right now I'm tired (it's 12:52 a.m., we got home about an hour ago).

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Stanley and Caesar are completely relaxed into each other on a lazy Sunday afternoon. I love it when they are cuddled up together.

I really don't have much more to say than this: What a week. Life gets a lot more complicated the older ya get. I said goodbye to a friendship and that's never an easy decision to make, but I've learned in the last few years that I guess I do have some things that I stand up for, even if it risks relationships. At the end of the day, I don't want to be surrounded by people who take advantage of others that are close to them, and the negative energy that goes with that type of behavior. So relationships get severed as a result of taking a stand, which is always sad - but unfortunately I've had so much of that happen in the last few years that it's becoming something I'm used to dealing with. Such is the ebb and flow of life.

Life is flowing in other areas, which is good for keeping it in some semblance of balance. We spent last night gearing up Week 2 of the Karaoke Radio Show contest and it's really been fun to put some energy into kicking this off - who knows, it might actually catch on and become a little something! We had more contestants than we did the first week, so word is spreading. I got to be a judge, and I likened myself to the Drunk Paula Abdul judge - I think everyone's fantastic and beautiful with the more beers I consume. I randomly compared the singers to sparkles and butterflies, and shouted out the words "rainbows" and "puppies" just for fun. Well, something like that...I actually drank quite a few beers and tried to not let that influence my judging abilities. One of the other judges, Kenny V., gave my boobs a high score for the evening.

The cooler weather has been good for my little garden and the rain helped the lawn turn a lighter shade of brown. I got my first vine-ripened tomato today. It's a Golden Boy variety, hence the yellow color. I'm saving it for a toast and tomato sammich later tonight.

Against Rob's recommendation that I finish The Great Gatsby before picking up a new novel, I started reading Wally Lamb's book, She's Come Undone. It's really good writing in my opinion - very good reading for me. In fact, I've got a date with that book and my backporch chair a little later. Sometimes that's all that's needed to make for a happy day.

The next time I travel it should come as no surprise to me when I take my clothes out of my luggage and they are covered in cat hair:

Timmy and I decided to have another summer party. It just seems wrong to not have a cookout get-together. I remember when I was married, I wanted to have parties all the time and those ideas were squashed by that fatass ex-husband of mine. So now I have Timmy who encourages parties, so we'd be foolish to pass up a summer opportunity. It's a little stressful for getting the garage cleaned up enough, but the termites will meet their maker this week and we should be all set then.

I enjoyed a nice lengthy visit with my grandmother Sophie yesterday evening. Let me just say, Al Gore would be quite proud of the very tiny carbon footprint she is leaving behind. She is neither a squanderer nor a waster. She was commenting about the neighbors wasting water as well as laundry detergent by sending their kids to school in clean clothes each day rather than re-using them again and again before a wash. I kinda get her point, I have dry-cleaning items that I wear only to work and get a few wears out of them between cleaning cycles. But I think it's a little different for wash-n-wear clothes that kids wear all day long - kids are stinky little sticky people. They need a good hosing down every day, in my opinion! But anyway, Sophie was Green before it had a name and a concert dedicated to it.

We may take an overnight trip to Canada this coming Friday. I love the fact that we can get away on a whim if we choose - why the heck not go!

Friday night we saw Transformers, there was more that meets the eye. It was pretty enjoyable, considering it's a kids cartoon/toy made into a very long feature.

There was a bit of strife on the golf league this week, which is really just crazy talk that golf should have any strife involved. My partner and I couldn't make it this week due to work committments and deadlines and it caused all sorts of a commotion. Emails were sent and I was in no mood to be politically correct and polite - we were accused of being discourteous and it was suggested we've been cheating (we're in 1st place), to which I took great offense to the suggestion. I don't cheat. Period. So my retort was as abbrasive as the accustions warrented, and to date there has been no follow-up response. Stupid people all around me it seems.

We've got the radio show tonight, and I'm going down to the station with Kenny to take photos. They have Scott Savol coming in as a Mystery Guest, and regardless of anyone's opinion, he was in the Top 5 of American Idol and that says something. He's a quasi-celebrity in the area, and a karaoke radio show is the perfect venue to leverage him, so I'll be there to take pictures for the My Space page. I'm such a hipster.

The Girl Cat has been a bit better behaved lately so she's been allowed to stay so far. Widda hasn't been too picked on, and in fact she turned the tables and actually bit Stanley in the face this morning when he was infringing on her pillow.

That's it for this week. I'm drained and have decided to go join the cats in a short nap.

Peace, and if you do nothing else in your life, stand up for something you believe in, no matter what the cost. People do different things and care about different things. No one can live a perfect life; everyone can make choices to live in the best possible manner that they can, so determine what that means to you and live to it.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

My font choices are gone - now what?? How can I be expected to type in Times New Roman?

Just got 'em back by relogging in - whew! That was a close call, thought I was going to have to turn blogging off completely. Yes, it would take just that little to shut 'er down. I didn't realize how font-sensitive I was until just this very moment. Close-call averted. Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief that there's another chance to read about all the important things in my life, such as my recent bout of uncontrollable itching.

Yes, that's right. I've been itching for a week now, since Vegas. All over, particularly the back of my thighs (killer), arms, belly and neck. I've scratched myself raw in spots and have some small bumpy rash-type things, but not everywhere. It's driving me crazy and I can't stand to be in my own skin. I don't know if it's allergy-related or not, but if it keeps up I guess I'll have to go see someone about it, but it seems to be a little ridiculous to complain about itching without a more visible cause. No, I haven't changed laundry detergent or soap, medication or vitamins, eating or drinking habits. Scratch all that. I'm For-No-Good-Reason Itchy. Ya think I'm kidding? Here's a big red hive on my chestish area.

Here's another little beauty:

What the hell is causing these to mar my perfection?? I may have to ask Sally to take me for some allergy patch tests since she's the pro with allergy-related malices.

A good part of the weekend was spent at church, St. Charles in Parma to be exact. Lots of praying was done and there's a good chance I'll be going back tonight for a couple of hours as well. Nothing like a good carnival with a casino room to get me into church on the weekends :) We spent Friday night playing Let It Ride dollar-poker, until they shut the place down at midnight. We listened to a little polka, ate a hotdog and gambled. A perfect Parma evening! Our "dealer" was the best part of the night, Frank Gonet had a very dry sense of humor and kept me laughing out loud all evening. He's back tonight so we may have to ride up there after the radio show, although that breaches my Sunday night at-home-in-pajamas-no-later-than-9:00 Rule.

Wednesday night the Karaoke Radio Show contest kicked off at O'Feenies. I wasn't going to go, as it's a work night for me, but I went at the last minute and it's a good thing I did; I had to take control of the sign-in, money collecting, and general organization. It all turned out surprisingly well, we had 12 singers, which was 10 more than I anticipated, and we've got some good stuff for the radio show tonight. I don't know how I became a silent partner, doing everything for no reward, but I'm putting it on my resume anyway.

The biggest news of the evening was that I got asked out to dinner by some guy sitting at the bar!! Wow. It's been a long time since I got hit on. It's even more amazing because I had a big zit on my chin and was with Kenny, but all that apparently doesn't matter when you're wearing a low-cut shirt. Oh, he was also wearing a wedding ring, which I called him on, and he had some excuse that he was "separated" and wouldn't take off the ring until it was legal to do so. Let me tell ya, Pal, that's not the way to get a date. Unless you're George Costanza.

Check out the My Space if you've exhausted all your normal e-reading and need one more thing to read before doing something productive with your time.

Our not-sure-if-it's-a-plant-or-a-weed got too big for it's own britches and fell over on itself. It probably has never been allowed to grow so large before and just didn't know how to handle it once it reached 4 ft. tall. Timmy got out a shovel and dug it up at the roots. I'm slightly saddened.

I had my worst work-week so far in my new job. The Sr. Product Analyst resigned, she's relocating, and really didn't do anything with our caption while I was on vacation, so I'm a solid week behind and had to meet with my boss to reallocate the workload. I don't blame the girl who left, I wouldn't overwork myself either, but it put me in quite a predicament and it will be one busy week starting tomorrow as well. I'm going to have to type a lot of words very quickly! Guess this will be my chance to either shine or burn on my own. Since I've been doing most of the work anyway, it's not going to be much different from what I've been doing - I just may actually get some credit for my efforts now. Or I'll suck :)

Melinda's been graciously dropping off a few loads of my stuff I've had stored at her house each week on her way home from work. Figures, my old Mr. Coffee coffeepot showed up along with a box of shoes, right after we purchased the new Cuisinart, which we really like and don't want to replace. That thermal carafe really keeps the coffee hot throughout the lazy sipping Sunday. Now I need to find room for all the crap that's being brought over, all of which I really do want to keep. So much stuff, so little space. Such is my life.

Is it sweet corn season yet?? Anyone? I don't want to miss out on it, but haven't seen it for sale at the little Farmer's Market.

The Girl Cat has taken to being a great big bully, beating up my tiny black Widda at every turn. She's even blocking her from using the litterbox, which has brought about a whole new set of problems. The Girl Cat has one week to shape up or she's going back to Linda's. I've been spanking her every time she bully's Widda, and now she runs scared from me. Good. Let her know what it's like to be bullied. How can such a pretty Girl Cat be such a great big bully? She looks harmless enough.

Maybe my itching is a cat-hair allergy. Wouldn't that be something.

Speaking of things that might make one itch, we discovered we have termites going TO TOWN on boxes stored in the garage. When we organized the garage a few months ago I noticed some of my boxes of stuff had been eaten away, but I - incorrectly - assumed it had happened while in the storage unit. It didn't dawn on me that they couldn't have been picked up and moved in that condition, because the contents fell right out. Kenny discovered this on Friday, his boxes of CDs that he sells on Ebay have been eaten away, destroying some of his inventory. It's going to cost about $500 to get it taken care of, they're coming out on Monday. It's always something around here, to be sure. And every time something like that crops up, I'm glad I'm not a homeowner at the present time. I don't want or need that added financial burden. The termites were heading towards some of my pictures in the garage, but the pictures got rescued in the nick of time. I'm sure Kenny wishes his favorite picture of mine - the Piccaso-like disjointed lady - was sitting right in the middle of the 'mites, but it's safe & sound on the guest bedroom wall.

If the solution to kill the termites f's with my garden, I am going to have one big stompin'-ass fit, to be sure. It is, of course, right next to the garage, and my plants are bearing fruit and I refuse to spray them with killing fluids. I've spent too much time tending them to just let them go over a few termites. Who cares if they can take the garage down, given enough time? My tomatoes and peppers are first priority this season!

My cat Newfie gave me a little scare this week. Kenny called me at work and told me she appeared disoriented and glassy-eyed. She finally snapped back to normal after some additional food, so I'm hoping it was just an isolated incident of low blood sugar, since she has diabetes. She seems to be fine today, she even walked all the way into our bedroom, which is a big feat for her.

Well, that's about it for now. Emily lent me a book I want to start today, She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. But first we have to do some household cleaning. Kenny's not too happy about that plan, he wanted to go to the movies, but we're doing stuff around the house whether he likes it or not. It's on the brink of getting out of control. We were out all night Saturday setting up his system at a bar in Broadview Hts for another DJ to use (he's renting out his system), the we went to another bar in Brookpark to pick up some commercials his other DJ friend had made for the radio show. While we were at that bar, Whiskers, I met a karaoke junkie named Eric, who was a little on the slow side, but really nice. I wasn't sure that he was officially "slow", as he told me some raunchy jokes, including this one:

Sunday, July 8, 2007

What a fun week it's been! Kenny and I jetted off to Las Vegas on the Fourth of July where we spent three fun-filled nights. Caesars Palace comped Big Spender (Kenny) our 3 nights, so we got to stay in the lap of luxury. We were a little nervous because the place is so huge, but it was very easy to navigate once we got the lay of the land. Timmy and Tina came in on Tuesday, staying at the Luxor, but we hooked up with them to dine at In-N-Out Burger and Kenny and Timmy played cards together on a few occasions. No trip to the West Coast is complete with out a Double-Double & fries!

The trip was even more fun since Rusty & Geri were also there the 4ththru the 7th, staying at Paris. Geri's birthday was the 5th, so they try to always plan a trip to Vegas around this time. We met up with them on Thursday since our first night there (Wednesday) was spent drinking much cold beer at Caesars and I was in no condition to go wandering around the town.

In fact, I believe I was passed out in bed around 11:00, after we had a fantastic dinner at the restaurant 808. Caesars has so many of my favorite slots, I played hard and often. Below's a pic of some of Caesars at night - it's so pretty there! Yes, the sky really is that black.

Once we hooked up with the Bowens on Thursday, we played many hands of cards together at Harrah's and the old favorite, Casino Royale. Casino Royale is this dumpy little hole of a casino, but they have cheap, fun tables so we always like to stop in and play for a while. Geri was on fire - it was her birthday, after all - and got cleaned up at 3-card poker. Rusty bought Geri got a fun new Tiffany necklace while in Vegas for her birthday. She gets the best Vegas presents!

I wasn't having as much luck so I joined Kenny at a virtual 3-card poker machine, which was a really cool video game invention. I ended up with a straight flush, winning over $800 on 1 hand so I cashed out and pocketed my winnings. From there we wandered to Harrah's and played even more, where I taught them how to play a card game called 3-5-7, while Kenny, Timmy & Tina played Crazy 4 Poker. Rusty really liked 3-5-7, we all did pretty good on it, but it was the Friday night playing where Rusty really cleaned up - he won thousands, I believe. He & Geri had lots of piles of black & green chips. I did really well, too, getting two straight-flushes (pays 40 to 1) almost back-to-back. I had my own little stack of blacks (over $800) and actually had to fund Kenny for a change!

My luck overall seemed to have turned for the better, I didn't get beat up too hard at all this trip, and I believe I owe it all to Frannie! One day at lunch I mentioned I have a gambling maloik and Frannie laughed and told me the way to keep the "evil eye" off me is to wear something red. She said that's the old wives tale. So I wrapped a red napkin wrapper around my money and it certainly didn't hurt! I kept that napkin wrapper with me the entire time - I believe it's still in my purse. Jill carries dog teeth, a fake nail (from me), one of my tooth caps, and who knows what else in her good luck pooch, so I'm not too strange in comparison with my napkin wrapper. Well, maybe a little strange when I took it out and rubbed it all over the slot machines I was playing. But what happens in Vegas....isn't strange at all in comparison to some of the shenanigans!

On Friday I used my free Qua spa pass from Caesars. It's a nakey spa. Well, nakey if you wanna be. I started out in my bathing suit, but felt like the strange one, if you can believe that. So I stripped off like the rest of 'em and took a svitz in the steam room, whirlpooled my tensions away and ended with a turn in the arctic freeze room. It had a fancy name, like a Freezeatorium or something crazy, but really it was just a hyper-cold room with foam snow falling from ceiling. I of course was never fully nakey, most did wrap a towel around and of course I needed something between me and everyone elses beavers that came before mine on the chairs. So it wasn't as "out there" as implied. But I did see a lot of stuff. Some good, some not so good. I'm pretty sure I know which category I would be in :) They also had a nakey pool, the Venus Pool, but I didn't really have time to wander over to check them .. er...it out. Gotta save something for another trip!

No trip would be complete with out a fakey Elvis (not a nakey Elvis):

Kenny was on the way to tying one on whichever night this was, because, as he put it, "The beers are just so....FREE!" I believe we were on our way to the Flamingo for more free beers and gambling.

Friday night we had tickets for the 8:00 Blue Man Group show at the Venetian. We got over there in plenty of time, 7:30, and discovered that it was already underway. Seems it starts at 7:00 on Friday, not the 8:00 I had read on the website. WTF. We had front-row seats and sat next to two gay guys who were borderline obnoxious. Well, not borderline. They were obnoxious and one of them actually got kicked out at some point for some shenanigans. You have to be pretty bad to get kicked out of something in Vegas!

7-7-07 was as busy as you could imagine, with brides running amok. My last wedding was on 7-7-92 (9-2=7), and we all know how that turned out so I don't put much stock in that whole numbers thing. Well, maybe it's more that I picked a horrible fatass cheater of a husband and less that I picked a bad date :)

Our flight on Saturday was a long ordeal and we weren't sure we were actually going to make it home. Our plane's brakes broke and we were all deplaned, with murmurings of us not getting out of there until Sunday. Kenny and Rusty called our preferred players hotline and reserved 2 more nights at Bally's just in case. I was totally excited at the thought of 2 more nights in Vegas and was all set to stay longer. I was even on the winnings, as was Kenny (he'd just won the double-diamond jackpot at the airport) and was ready for more gambling and drinking. I was probably the most excited person they've ever had for a delay.

We got our tickets switched over for a Monday morning flight, shuttle service vouchers, meal vouchers and were all set and then at the last moment they fixed the stinkin' plane. So we all came home, but it was a long flight. We had to make a stop in Denver for more fuel, they couldn't fly it with a full load from Vegas because it was too hot outside - the plane was too heavy for the hot, thin air. That added another hour and a half onto an already long day. We ended up getting back into Cleveland around 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Needless to say, I'm still tired.

It wasn't until we returned home that we read the full story about the sniper in New York, New York. That would have been scary! We were across the street when all that was going on, at the Flamingo. Just another case of a wackadoo wandering around. Reaffirms my belief to live as hard as you can while you can. You never know what the day will bring.

We had no celebrity sightings, but did see some hot chicks. Platinum-blond, big boobie hot chicks. Maybe they were someone and we just didn't know it - some of The Girls Next Door or Pussycat Dolls. That's as close as we got to fame, other than Big Elvis, of course.

With both Geri and I on vacation, Jill and Fran were on their own for work lunches - we'll make up for it on Monday!

I think I have a minor addiction to nose spray, by the way. In case you were wondering.

I've got lots of little tomatos on the vines, and the peppers are starting to peek thru. Hooray! Nothing died while we were gone, thanks to Kenny's mom Linda watering and maintaining.

That's it for now - this blog is all about me this week. If you haven't stopped reading yet, Peace and enjoy the heat of July!

Sunday, July 1, 2007

Summer card night was kicked off on Jill's deck Friday night. It was a full-crowd with Anastasia (and her baby and her giant "twins" in tow), Meggan, Sally, Fran and Jill. Meggan brought some fabulous steaks that Len cooked on the grill for us, while I brought a rice dish that was some type of fancy Tuscany-inspired rice-a-roni that wasn't nearly as good as the original San Francisco treat. Jill's mom stayed and joined us for dinner while she awaited the arrival of Jill's sister's flight from Texas. Due to the heavy rains in Texas, the flight was delayed until well after midnight, so Jill's mom went home before the card game began.

It was a very fun celebration of Anastasia's June birthday and Geri's upcoming July 5th birthday. Geri received a special present, the Blue Bedazzler found it's way around her neck again!

The necklace must have had special magical lucky powers because Geri ended up taking home the jackpot at the end of the evening - a first for her!! She has vowed to take the necklace to Vegas with her this week - I may have to wrestle it away from her, although it has brought me no luck in the past few months that I've had it.

Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz was looking very pregnant, and very happy about it, too! She's due in September and she and the baby enjoyed another piece of Becker's Cake, which has become a card-night staple.

I was mesmerized by her very large...um....smile.

It was a very busy week overall. Tuesday night was a Toastmasters picnic in the Metroparks. It was surprisingly fun, and not nearly as lame as I had anticipated. I still haven't given my Icebreaker speech, and no one believed my reasoning that "I'm shy." I'm slated to give it in July. I really just have nothing interesting to say about myself....well, nothing that can be shared with that group, anyway!

Wednesday night Fran, Jill, Geri and I had a Mexican Fiesta at El Rodeo to celebrate Chris Vargo's unbirthday. Words can't express the excitement Chris felt when they placed the Urban Sombrero atop her head.

Of course, we celebrated with more Becker's cake! We are definately Becker's most steady customers.

Speaking of cake, Jill and I are in the process of trying to sign up for cake decorating lessons at Pat Catan's on Berea Road. The plan was in place, but then foiled at the last minute on Friday as they emailed us with a date/time change. It was originally scheduled for Wednesday's at 6:00 p.m., which would have been very convenient. Now they've moved it to Saturday's at 10:00. I can't be someplace by 10:00 a.m. on a weekend! I didn't even go to my chiropractor on the weekends, and I was motivated by pain. I like frosting, but I'm not sure it's enough to motivate me out of bed on a Saturday morning. One, yes. Not four in a row. Know your limits, plan within them. Jill's going to call and see if they'll make other arrangements, so we'll see what she gets worked out with them. We could still be cake-decorating maniacs.

Sally has managed to lose 65 lbs. over the course of the past year or so. She's looking much healthier and happier and is quite proud of herself, as she should be. We need to take some pictures when she gets some form-fitting clothes - right now she's still a little baggy in the britches to showcase her hard work.

Thursday night was golf, and I've finally found my swing. I'm not setting the course on fire, but I was able to have some decent shots and was reminded why I like to play. My partner Ryan and I are in 1st place - which is just plain crazy talk, but sure does make it more fun! I'm sure our handicaps will catch up with us at some point, but right now we have a nice lead.

Saturday was my nephew Justin's graduation party. Kenny took out the Karaoke system and we set that up to entertain the masses. The kids were all skitish about it, and I finally took over and sang. Then I had one of Justin's little girlfriends do a duet of Goodbye, Earl with me she was hooked. A Karaoke Junkie has been born. We showed Erica how to run the system while we ran to a retirement party for our friend Dan. We partied with Dan, then ran back out to LaGrange to dismantle the system, pack it up and head for home. Erica and the gang were still singing when we returned at 11:00 p.m. We did 3 more songs together before Kenny unplugged us. It was a long day of travel, he had heard enough bad singing and just wanted to go home. Frankly, I don't know how he could be tired of hearing Save a horse, ride a Cowboy or Copacabana, but he was.

Kenny's radio show had it's big debut tonight on WHK 1420. I think it went over pretty well! I sat in the studio and listened and I'm not quite sure how I kept my lips closed for an entire hour, but I did it. I've been busy creating a My Space page for them, it's still a work in progress, but it'll get there. They had some callers, so someone was out there listening. Who knows, maybe it will catch on like wildfire.

Today I'm having my pre-vacation anxiety that I always get before I leave town. I think about the millions of details that need to be accomplished before I go - laundry, general tiding up, buying cat necessities, etc. It's a lot and it piles up quickly when you're not home to take care of any of it, as I haven't been this past week. I'm trying not to get too worked up about it, but it's not doing much good. I've resorted to drinking a LaBatt Blue Light to take the edge off. Course, I could be having Tim's night; Tina marched in and told him she's not going because ... well, who really knows why. Same melodramatic stunt she always pulls. Glad it's not my problem! I have enough to worry about with the laundry and cat litter - now those are real pre-vacation issues!

Instead of doing anything productive around the house, Kenny and I went and saw Diehard today. What a great movie! We got in for free since his friend Chris is now working there, which made the movie even better :) Really fun to watch, a somewhat sensible storyline and of course Bruce Willis in all his bald-headed splendor. What's not to love! Yippie-Ki-Yay.

I've somehow developed seasonal allergies, much to my dismay. I used to hate it when my fatass ex FuckSteve was snotty and sniffling, and now here I am - snotty and sniffling, with a mild addiction to nose spray. Chris Rock once said, "Be careful of the thing you hate the most, because one day it will end up in your family." I don't think he was talking about allergies, but in my case this certainly applies - I have very little sympathy for allergy-sufferers, and now I'm afflicted.

So far, we have been thrilled with our new coffeemaker! It makes a very tasty cuppa joe, and that thermal pot keeps it hot literally all day long.

I'm still tired from the past week and am calling this a blog. It's a bit lacking, but I'm just out of interesting words. I'm down to writing about my latest pooping incident, and frankly I don't think we need two weeks in a row about that. I can hear the sighs of relief :)

Peace, and the next time we chat I hope I'm posting about my very large Las Vegas winnings!

Throw a surprise party - CHECK! Kenny's 40th, Linda's 60th, My moms way back in the day.

Publish a piece of fiction

Have an offshore bank account - tried to do this in Grand Caymen, it's tougher than getting married! Letters of reference, bank statements..they want a lot of stuff to float my 50large around down there.

Swim with dolpins - check

Drink Guinness in an Irish Pub

Drink wine under the Tuscan sun - check

Use a bidet - CHECK! Trip to Italy 2006ish?

Swim in tropical waters - check

See the sun rise and set over the ocean in the same day - CHECK! Florida. We watched the sun set on the one coast, drove across the state, got up in the morning and watched the sun rise of the east coast the next morning.

Go on a safari

Ride in a helicopter - CHECK! During my "married to a policeman" years, friends with the police chopper pilot, took a few spins over the glorious city of Cleveland.

Whitewater rafting - CHECK! Back in my younger/married/unwiser years, rafted in WV, the Gulley River was one of 'em. Lived to tell about it.

Skydive - CHECK! During married/unwiser/braver years. Three times, I did. I was brave, had to do it again, and again to prove it wasn't just hormones, but actual braveness.